»Futuring Machines. Practice-based exploration of AI as algorithmic irritation in the context of participatory futures«
Future-oriented, resilient societies require a critical engagement with possible futures. Using an interdisciplinary, practice-based approach, the project Futuring Machines investigates the potential of Human-AI interactions as disruptive thought-provoking impulses to facilitate critical reflection on future scenarios and foster perspective change through the writing of fictions and imaginary stories. To this end, the interdisciplinary team aims to iteratively optimize a large language model and develop an AI-supported writing tool that will be deployed in participatory workshops with diverse actors.
The 1-year project is funded by the Fellowship Forschungswerkstatt of the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar and started on 1.1.2024.
Project team:
Jordi Tost, M.A. — PhD student Faculty Art & Design, associated with HCI group, Fac. of Media
Dr. Johannes Kiesel — PostDoc Professorship Intelligent Information Systems, Fac. of Media
Mattis Kuhn, Dipl. Des. — Artistic Staff, Professorship Cross-media Moving Image, Fac. of Art & Design
Prof. Dr. Eva Hornecker — Professor of HCI, Fac. of Media
Marcel Gohsen, M.Sc. — Research Assistant Professorship Intelligent Information Systems, Fac. of Media
Maximilian Heinrich, M.A. — Research Assistant Professorship Intelligent Information Systems, Fac. of Media
External members:
Britta Schulte (PhD) — Research Assistant Anhalt Univ. of Applied Sciences
Fidel Thomet, M.A. — Research Assistant Urban Complexity Lab, Potsdam Univ. of Applied Sciences
Futuring Machines events
How will we live in 50 years? The >Futuring Machines< project has been busy developing the user interface and different modes of co-writing. It now runs a set of workshops where participants will be cowriting speculative fiction with AI. We'll imagine future scenarios, reflect on possibilities, fears and hopes, and put this all into short stories, supported by the AI-based co-writing tool that developed by the team. With this, we simultaneously explore futuring writing and the potential of the AI tool developed.
The first workshop »Zukünfte schreiben mit KI« took place during the 'Night of Writing' on 13th June at the University Library of BUW (Session 1: 19:15 bis 20:45; Session 2: 21:30 bis 23:00) in the PC-Pool of the Library.
The second workshop »Queer Futures schreiben mit KI« took place during the Campus Pride Week on 18th June (Session 1 — 14:00 bis 16:00 ; Session 2 — 17:00 bis 19:00) SCC PC-Pool 2.
We ran a joint workshop on »AI as a Citizen: Eliciting Smart City Future Stories through Human-AI Collaborative Fiction Writing« at the Academic Mindtrek conference in Tampere, Finland on October 8th. This involved more members of the HCI lab as well as external organisers interested in this.